


die Tage hinter uns

by Zaviire



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: Background Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 10:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2544866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaviire/pseuds/Zaviire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kain was fifteen, the Dragoons lost a leader. He, in turn, lost a father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Regenreiche Tage, ohne dem Regen

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Kain Highwind-loving trash and I felt like writing something a little gloomy. Uh. Happy Halloween?? 
> 
> This has been written in three parts. It's currently complete, but I'm not going to post it all at once.
> 
> Story title translation: The days behind us.

Kain Highwind _wished_ it would rain.

The sky threatened it since he had woken to a muted sunrise. The clouds seemed to cast the world in shades of gray – there was the gray stone that comprised the castle, of course, but the normally off-white color of the clay bricks that made up the town of Baron proper seemed little more impressive than a medium gray. Not entirely fitting for a day in early spring when the world was supposed to be blooming to life, but he couldn’t say it  actually _was_ inappropriate; such melancholy hues were befitting of a day, spring or not, marking such a world-shattering loss as this, both for this and for the Dragoons as a whole.

He wasn’t sure where one loss ended and the other began.

At first, he hadn’t believed it when he’d received news of his father’s death. It was so much easier to deny when the only ‘proof’ of such an event was a letter with his family’s seal holding it closed with the edges of the envelope dipped in black, crumbled from its journey in the bag of the messenger, sent only a day ahead of those who would be bringing the great Richard Highwind’s body home. But standing there among the tombstones as he watched with blank blue eyes as they lowered the oaken box that contained his father’s body – how ironic, for a Dragoon born of the skies meet his final resting place beneath earth – into the ground, there could no longer be any doubt.

He wished it would rain so that he’d have an excuse to let himself cry. Surely, the death wasn’t unexpected; military men often lost their lives in the line of duty. But for Kain, that’d always only happened to other men, to the father of other children. Never _his_ father, no; _his_ father was _invincible_.

The Dragoon corps’ second-in-command delivered a eulogy that Kain was only half-paying-attention to. He briefly wished that he would have been asked to speak – after all, he was the only son left to his legacy – but some wishes are not meant to be simply because he was considered too young among the company of battle-hardened soldiers to understand, truly, the greatness of his father, and upon a brief reflection he wasn’t sure he’d have much to say anyway. And did he even have the right to open his mouth, at that? The last thing he’d told his father the morning he’d left with his men on a campaign predicted to be short-lived (though it wound up lasting close to a year) was that he _hated_ him. And sure, the few letters they’d exchanged wound up being far more pleasant, but how many times could you revise a letter? You could have written something truly _nasty_ and scrapped the draft and rewritten it nicer, and no one would be ever the wiser. So it was those few words exchanged in person that truly mattered.

He nodded stiffly and gave little verbal response to those offering him their sympathies. There wasn’t really anything to say. His father was dead and now, buried, leaving a Kain who’d only just barely turned fifteen on his own to make an attempt to forge his own path (or, forge the parts of his path that had yet to be forged).

It wasn’t until a delicate hand found its place on his shoulder and a voice that was sounded as sweet as roses after rain smelled called his name that he offered more than a nod of acknowledgement. His eyes locked with Rosa’s and it was this, only this, that offered him any real peace.

Rosa had _been there._ She’d _done that._ Only three years prior, their roles would have been reversed, with a Kain Highwind who’d only _just_ started to hit puberty consoling a Rosa Joanna Farrell in the wake of _her_ father’s untimely demise – and he’d even been a Dragoon, as _his_ father had been. Fancy that.

And he swore that just that moment of eye contact, those few simple words – “I’m sorry for your loss, Kain; I’m here for you if you need me” – would be enough to magically fix everything, as those gifted with white magic tended to have the capacity to do.

He forced a smile. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

He didn’t want her hand to slip away, and he almost wanted to catch it and hold it to his shoulder, but he refrained. To do that, he feared, would be asking too much of her, especially as she slipped away and his ‘friend’ Cecil (Kain only considered him such because that was what made Rosa happy; if he was being honest, he didn’t really like the white-haired boy all that much) replaced her.

The faked smile faded, replaced instead with a tight-lipped frown, as their eyes locked and Cecil offered him his condolences. And there was something about Cecil’s tone that struck a nerve – perhaps it was the way he spoke as if his words came from experience, or perhaps it was simply his distaste for the younger boy coloring his perceptions. “I’m not sure,” Kain muttered, not fully intending for his voice to reach Cecil’s ears (or the nearby Rosa’s for that matter), “You understand the gravity of what’s been lost.”

“How’s that?” Of course, it reached him anyway. Not that he had a _problem_ with that per se, but Kain lacked the energy to carefully conjure any words which would be particularly scathing.

Kain took a breath, “You offer your sympathies as if you _understand_. Today—” his voice cracked and he took a moment to gather himself “—I lost my father, Harvey.” The silence the other boy offered in response only egged him on. “You haven’t lost a _single thing._ ”

And insofar as Kain was concerned, it was true! Cecil Harvey, a (very likely) lowborn orphan, taken in by his majesty the King himself, carried on life without a worry in the world. There would be no parents lost in the line of duty or to illness or to anything – because he had no parents to lose, he had only the King who’d claimed him as a son and royalty had a tendency to live a secure and healthy lifestyle in the Kingdom of Baron, so Cecil didn’t, and likely _never would_ understand what he was going through.

He took a breath, his lips parted as if he meant to continue, but the way Cecil shrunk away as if he’d been slapped and the way Rosa’s gaze shifted between the two boys as if she were debating with herself over whether or not to intervene told him he’d made his point.

All the better. He turned his gaze downward and made to leave, stepping around Rosa with a nod, perhaps meant to be a wordless apology. Not for his words and not for his actions – those, he felt, were justified at the very least at the most basic level – but because he hated to have Rosa have to _choose_ between the two of them, be it in matters of sparing either of their feelings or otherwise.

She deserved better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title translation: "Rainy days, without the rain".


	2. Die erste von vielen schlaflosen Nächten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hit my world goal for NaNoWriMo, so I figured I'd reward myself by posting this one early. (I was originally going to post it on Sunday, 11/2/2014.)

He knew that he ought to start collecting what few belongings were truly _his_ so that they wouldn’t get taken and redistributed according to his father’s will. There was really exactly nothing he was interested in hanging onto – nothing he would either feel right keeping or held so few significant memories that he could bear to keep it in his presence for extended periods of time.

The silence was so thick that it choked out any attempt the world made to make a sound. It wasn’t so different from the days and nights Kain had spent alone on the surface – but with the knowledge that no one would be coming home again, it felt almost oppressive. It almost made him want to open the shutters more and let some air stream in. But he laid running his fingers over the leather cover of the cover of a book instead – hell if he could recall what it was actually about, but the repeated motion provided a simple sort of solace at least. Somehow, failing all else, this was enough, even as a certain numbness pervaded his being.

He let the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding go free as he stood, the chair’s legs letting out a low squeak as they slid against the cold stone tile floor. He cast a sweeping glance around the familiar – yet foreign – room, and it dawned on him that this would be the last night out of countless that he would call this place home. And yet there was no uncertainty as to where he’d end up; his father was grimly aware that actively serving in the military involved some sort of risk, and the King had agreed to take Kain in should anything happen to him. He expected to wake to soldiers at his door, expecting him to be up bright and early and ready to go – but that was more because he wasn’t sure he knew how the move was supposed to occur, so he assumed that the routine would be similar to the one his father had forced him into seven years ago, when he was barely old enough to pick up a sword.

With little more preamble or hesitation, he blew out the candle and it took the light along with it, leaving everything cast in a shadow that attempted to look bronze.

He climbed into bed and minutes lying awake stretched into hours. He swore he almost dropped off once, but a roll of thunder that would have been much appreciated earlier in the day made sure that he was back to toeing the line between sleep and wakefulness for a bit longer. He glanced over to the stairway in the darkness, and it was either that or the realization that his father wasn’t sleeping on the floor below that pushed him just a bit too far and that first tear fell, and of course he couldn’t force himself to stop there and he knew that in any other situation his father might reprimand him for not being strong enough – but that didn’t _matter_ anymore because his father wasn’t there, he was six feet under and he wouldn’t rise again.

But the numbness in his body remained and an ache still had a hold on his heart and he knew that this was just the first of many sleepless nights, but everything has to start somewhere.

 

He spent the day waiting.

And he spent the day wandering, too, though he didn’t find any purpose behind his movements. He considered stepping out getting some air, but nothing ever came of the thoughts. The place he called home felt too strange without his father and it was almost like he’d rediscovered every nook and cranny all over again; it was with dismay that he found that he’d grown too big to hide properly among the trunks and boxes stowed in the corner of the bottom floor near where his father’s bed was, as he used to when he was little and wanted to avoid his parents.

He wished he’d spent less time avoiding them now.

And hoping that maybe there’d been some sort of miscommunication and he’d been expected to show up at the castle of his own accord and no one would come to help him get settled in to his “new home” so that he could just stay in his own home among the ghosts of the past forever. Of course, it was painful to look at his father’s possessions, and to turn corners expecting him to be there with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be.

Of course, no such miscommunication occurred and, in due time, his escort made his appearance; by the look of his armor, he was a Dragoon (not surprising), but Kain didn’t recognize him. A cadet, most likely; the higher-ups had better things to do than deal with the son that their commander had left behind. The look of shock on the young man’s face barely even dawned on Kain until he’d been put through a line of questioning – _“Did you not sleep?” “Don’t you want to change into fresh clothes?”_ – to which he just answered mostly with nods of confirmation or denial or noncommittal shrugs and silence. The final question – _“Have you eaten?”_ – was one Kain took into more careful consideration. Over the course of the day, from sunrise after a largely sleepless night all the way until the sun had well passed the high point of its journey across the sky, he’d barely even picked at any food that was readily available and fit for consumption; he’d like to say he was hungry, but he didn’t really feel much of anything, let along hunger. So he lied and said yes, because he had a feeling that if he answered honestly, he would be forced to eat food that he honestly had no real interest in at the moment.

It seemed to work, and with little further preamble, they were on their way, and Kain’s home was behind him forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title translation: "The first of many sleepless nights".
> 
> Fun fact, I actually wrote the latter half of this chapter last, since I figured it'd make it flow better, and also because I wanted to hit 3000 words in total, which after the completion of the very last part, I hadn't done. Hah.


	3. Die heitere Tage vomweg

It was one thing to live behind walls. The kingdom of Baron, in its early years, around 800 years removed from the present era, deemed the walls necessary to keep those who sought to take over and claim the resources under possession of the now proud nation out. And though Baron was now the world’s leading military power, the walls offered a bit of extra peace of mind to the people.

But that was completely different from the sort of walls that Kain found himself retreating behind in the weeks following his father’s funeral.

Once expressive eyes grew cold and where he’d once grinned or scowled or sneered, ghosts of smiles and of frowns took their places. And he supposed that it helped him feel better, if only a little; he certainly wasn’t as vulnerable. So he could pretend that the fact that he was left to his own devices didn’t hurt and he could fade into the background and let Cecil (whom he supposed he’d have to learn to live with) bask in the affections of the King. It was perfectly fine, he told himself, that he had to figure out for himself what it truly meant to grieve. And perhaps things were better this way, as much as he hated to admit it. He couldn’t have his father holding his hand forever (though to be fair, not a whole lot of that was done in the first place; the first thing that came to mind, in fact, when considering his father’s methods of teaching him, was the time he’d been brought up to his father’s favorite perch on the castle walls and  _pushed_ ; miraculously, Kain hadn’t broken any bones) and what better way to force him to be self-sufficient than to yank the metaphorical carpet right out from under him? Although slowly, steadily working up more of an appetite and sleeping more soundly as that day faded into the past and he grew more determined to formally join the ranks of the Dragoons as soon as he was able – and by now he was counting down the months – Kain was still a far sight from the hot-blooded, arrogant boy that his father had left behind.

Kain poked at the ground idly with the wooden staff in his hand for a moment, eyeing the top of the castle walls as if he were considering whether he  _really_  wanted to be up there enough to jump and see what happened. It was a bit higher than anything he’d attempted before, but improvement could not be made without a bit of trial and error – and he’d nothing better to do, not really, since he’d already taken care of feeding his late father’s dragon for a moment (and he’d been thanked with an attempt by the dragon to leave claw marks on his forearm, no less).

 The dilemma was answered for him, naturally, when Cecil made his appearance, and he was left shouting his words up to Kain as he struggled to pull himself up and onto the top of the wall after falling just short and ending up with little to no foothold and sending his staff clattering to the ground at Cecil’s feet. Sloppy work, to be sure, and his father would be disappointed since Kain had proven capable of making the jump before, but not bad considering the leap was made on a whim.

He kept his back to the boy whom he supposed was now his brother, until Cecil shouted up to him something about Rosa. That proved effective enough at getting Kain’s attention – and it was a simple fact that all involved had come to understand and occasionally take advantage of (as Cecil did now) that if either one of the boys was stubbornly refusing to listen to reason, bringing her up would quickly remedy that. Kain remained perched on the wall, of course, but had reoriented himself so that he could at least look at Cecil, gesturing silently to continue.

“Rosa brought something for you.”

He’d obviously paid more attention to the tone in which he’d delivered the words, and even further chose the statement carefully. Kain couldn’t say he was surprised.

A moment of silence preceded Kain pushing himself off the wall and landing, at last, on the ground. The momentum forced him into a crouch and he spoke as he straightened himself – “Alright.”

 

Perhaps it would have been more accurate for Cecil to say that Rosa had brought something for  _all_  of them. To share. Because as soon as they’d joined Rosa in Cecil’s room at the top of the westernmost tower, it was apparent that whatever she had wrapped in white fabric and set in a woven basket was likely too much for just him alone. And such an assumption was soon proven to be true when she set it on the table and revealed some gingerbread cookies – nothing fancy, and about two months early to the scene given that winter had not even begun yet – and Kain had to force himself to wait until she’d said her piece before reaching for one.

“Kain,” she began, looking up at him with those eyes that spoke of the determined and strong-willed woman just below a demeanor that spoke of a well-adjusted, well-versed young lady who had had still yet to grow into her own shoes. “If there’s anything I’d change about you, it’s your tendency to shut-out the people who want to help you.” A smile crossed her lips, forcing one to grace Kain’s lips as well.

He had to admit that she had a point. But it was easier – and, he was taught, more beneficial – to try and sort out his problems all on his own rather than to rely on others too much emotionally. He opened his mouth to speak when Rosa grabbed his wrist, bringing his hand toward Cecil’s, which she’d done something similar with. She pressed their palms together and continued, “Now we’re going to all  ** _get along_** —” Kain knew there was a threat there, beneath her ever-so-kind ‘suggestion’ “—and enjoy the cookies my mother made for us. Aren’t we?”

Where Cecil verbalized his assent, Kain nodded it.

With their hands released, they were free to enjoy the cookies, and that they did. Kain had to force himself to enjoy them at a leisurely pace – the sweet treat managed to, where all else failed, pull him out of his melancholy mood. He turned his gaze to the horizon just out the window and was silent, but the sort of silence that Kain made no effort to break among them wasn’t the uncomfortable sort by a long shot, and quite honestly it spoke volumes more than any of the words in their teenage vocabularies could.

And, for the first time since the funeral, he felt like there were better days ahead of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've begun thinking of a FFIV fanfiction project, but I have my NaNoWriMo to worry about, so it probably will only be jotted down as an outline rather than actually becoming a thing until maybe December. I also have another thing I want to write to get a feel for... how the characters are presently, rather than awkward teenagers who just lost everything. Maybe in the future; this was fun.
> 
> Chapter title translation: "The brighter days ahead".


End file.
